Basic Running Mechanics

Every runner's pace can be broken down into two basic components, a stride rate and a stride length.  Stride rate refers to how frequently your legs 'turnover' to get you through a specific distance.  The stride length is the amount of distance you cover with each stride.

The current theory regarding these two components of running mechanics is your stride rate does not change as you get older.  What does change is your stride length becomes progressively shorter.

The technique drills I have begun will hopefully increase my stride length.  My Garmin GPS watch has a companion  foot pod which I could wear on my sneaker to determine my turnover or cadence.  Using the mileage I have run generated by the GPS enabled  watch and the stride count generated by the foot pod I could calculate my average stride length.

The Garmin foot pod retails for about $100.  My family and I have more important items to spend $100 upon than a foot pod for daddy to calculate his stride length.  I'd love to borrow one for a day to determine if my stride length is two, three or four feet.  I typically run fastest at races.  Does my stride length increase at races or does my turnover increase, or both?

Technique Drills Recovery

I purposely did not try to complete too many repetitions of the various Pete Magill inspired technique drills.  I used a variety of muscles in my legs which I had not employed for any activities for  years.  Most of the techniques addressed my legs range of motion.   Because I warmed up by running a mile and a half, I was fortunate I did not pull any muscles.

I ran a mile to cool down after the technique drills. My leg muscles were so sore I turned in a mile cool down time in excess of nine minutes.

I am much more sore today than I had ever imagined from doing the technique drills.  I had planned on running today, but will instead dedicate the day to recovering from yesterday's drills. 


My next race is exactly a month away, on May 23rd.  It is a one mile run.  The fastest I have ever run a mile is six minutes and eight seconds, at the 1997 Smith Barney Mile in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  I have every intention of setting a new personal record for the one mile next month.

Running Technique Drills

I have been running for just over a year.  I was having issues with trying to keep running enjoyable.  How many times can you run the same route without becoming bored ?  My variety in running has been limited to street running and track running. 

There's a gentleman named Pete Magill who wrote an excellent article regarding training for five kilometer races within the April 2010 issue of Running Times. Within the article he touches upon technique drills.  Upon his website site, titled Younger Legs for Older Runners @ http://petemagill.blogspot.com/ he has an excellent video documenting nearly a dozen technique drills.


I decided to give a majority of them a try today at the local high  school track.  I was amazed at how many muscle groups I have not used in the course of my basic training methods to date.  None of Pete's drills are killers or exercises designed to raise your pain tolerance threshold.  Quite the opposite is true.  You  are to concentrate on form and fluidity as opposed to brute speed or strength. 

I am very excited over the prospect of developing my running skills to the extent I can make a quantum leap to the next level, the locally elite runner level. It will take a majority of this year, but I believe at the end of the year I wiill be a very competitive runner in my age band.

Pete Magill website

Pete Magill is a masters runner hailing from California and is about a year older than I.  He is an elite American runner, having completed a five kilometer race in under fifteen minutes.  I am currently working on breaking twenty two minutes for a five kilometer run. He has many more accomplishments too numerous to list here.  I regard him as someone who has mastered the art of running as evidenced by his racing performances and who also develops training plans which have proven to achieve results.
 
He recently was profiled in an issue of Running Times.  He has a website called Younger Legs for Older Runnsers at http://petemagill.blogspot.com/.  Unfortunately it appears the website is not active anymore as Mr. Magill simply doesn't have the time to feed the site on a regular basis.

I had incorrectly typecast Pete Magill as some laser focused running fanatic with no semblance of a personality because of a all consuming dedication toward running.   After reviewing hs website which contained some live videos of his training tips, the man is down to earth and very engaging.  My take on his training is that you need to keep things fun, by employing practices and and a variety of technique drills which he has found to be personally effective.

Pete used to be a four pack a day smoker.  He began to get back in shape at age 39,  in large part because he had a son he wanted to share his life with in a more enriching and responsible  manner. At age 41, he was garnishing accolades for his impressive performances.

I found myself laughing at some of his antics in the training videos.  Case in point., he has a marathon training video where he addresses the nuances of  grabbing a cup of fluid and drinking the fluid from a water station attendant. The runner who is demonstrating how to grab the cup while running incorrectly gauges  the location of the cup and knocks the cup out of the attendant's hand, spilling the entire contents on the water station attendant (played by Pete himself)..




Excerpted from Running Times  website ...

Typical two weeks of training for Magill (pace of training runs varies from 6:00 to 8:00/mile depending on how his body feels):

Sunday: Medium run (approximately 10–11 miles)
Monday: a.m. --- Short run (approximately 5–6 miles) p.m. -- Medium run
Tuesday: a.m. -- Short run p.m. --- 3-mile warm-up, 20 x 400m @ 5K effort (approximately 70 seconds) with 100m jog recoveries; 3-mile warm-down
Wednesday: Medium run
Thursday: a.m. -- Short run; p.m. -- Medium run
Friday: a.m. -- Short run; p.m. -- Technique drills; short run afterward
Saturday: Long run (approximately 14-15 miles)

Second week:

Same, except Tuesday p.m. speed work, which he exchanges for 3 x set of 1 mile at 15K pace, 1200m at 5K pace, 800m at 3K pace, 400m at mile pace; all with 400m jog recoveries; 3-mile warm-up and 2-mile warm-down. If race on Saturday, he does only one workout on Thursday (medium run) and Friday (20 minutes of jogging and stretching).

Training philosophy

"Put away your watch, stop counting miles and start listening to the body. Our bodies will tell us more accurately how fast and far to run than a watch or training log ever can. And our bodies will warn us when we're courting disaster - injury or overtraining - long before our minds are willing to accept the premise. More importantly, when we learn to listen to our bodies, we learn how to race."

Boston Marathon 2010

An American runner did not win this year.  A gentleman named Robert Cheriuyot from Kenya won and set a new course record.  He is 21 years old and could dominate marathon races for years to come. Ironically he is not the same Robert Cheriuyot who has won the Boston marathon several times before.

A marathon race is the worst pairing of my abilities with a race type.  I am more of a sprinter than I am a distance runner.  Generally, sprinters have a larger build than distance runners.  I have lost a fair amount if weight but I would still regard myself as a light Clydesdale.

I would love to accomplish running the Boston marathon as a bucket list item, i.e., something I would like to do before I die.  However, you must qualify for the Boston marathon.  I need to run a qualifying marathon time of three hours and thirty minutes for my age group band.  This translates to running an eight minute mile pace for twenty six miles.  I have yet to eclipse running an eight minute mile consecutively for five miles. I have a long way to go to be good enough to qualify for the Boston marathon.

My best chance for achieving a BQ (Boston Qualifier)  time may occur when I turn 50 and the qualifying time for this next age band for Boston is reduced to a level where you need to average eight minutes and  thirteen seconds per mile.

Running and Personal Growth

I am so grateful I have pursued running as an avocation.  Running is not something I have always aspired to do.  In fact, I have not liked to run for the majority of my life. The convergence of my blood pressure being severely elevated and purchasing contact lenses last year led to my pursuit of running to address my serious health issue.

Running has not only enabled me to get back into shape, I now have more energy than I have had in years.  With two young sons and being in my mid 40's, I need to be there for my boys over the next decade to help them develop their athletic skills.

I have progressed from the level of a neophyte runner to being able to medal in five kilometer races.  Last year I could not run three miles without injuring myself.  The beauty of running is you generally reap the seeds you sow. I have run for nearly 750 miles since I began last year. I have set a personal record for every race I have run this year.

My next race is a one mile race at the end of May.  I have little chance of  finishing first, second or third in this race as last year's medal crew all finished the mile under five minutes and fifteen seconds.  My current one mile personal record is 6:26.  My goal is to break six minutes per mile.

I am going to train a solid six weeks for this next race.  I need to develop some speed which should carry through into my future 5K and 10K endeavors.

Ridley Run 3.1 Results

I had to get up very early for this race, about 4:30 am.  It was scheduled to begin at 8:00am and I had a ninety minute drive ahead of me.  Much to my dismay the temperatures were in the mid 40's and their was a mild wind which made it feel even colder.  I felt somewhat flat and not very energetic to begin my day.

The commute went very well as the majority was spent on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.  I arrived at the Ridley High school to pick up my bib no.  I drew the number 73. For some reason I was disappointed with the number.  I usually like to attribute some meaning to the number, i.e. 63 the year I was born or 77 the year my wife was born, etc.

This was a point to point race and we had to be bussed to the local YMCA, the starting point of the race.  It had probably been several decades since I had ridden on a school bus.  They haven't changed too much.  I thought they would all have video cameras installed, but the bus I rode did not have any cameras.

There was an extremely long wait at the YMCA before the race began.  I believe the turnout for this race was much greater than anticipated.  In past years, there were on the order of 200 runners.  This year the race contained about 400 runners.

The race began a few minutes after 8:30am and I found myself caught up in a hornet's nest of adolescent teens for the first quarter mile.  After I was able to navigate around the group I settled into my pace.  My mile splits were 7:01, 7:27, and  and 7:27.  This was a very good race for me as I did not falter in the last mile.  I set a new personal 5K record of 22 minutes and 48 seconds.  I had targeted a new PR of 22:45.  I am not going to lose sleep over falling three seconds shy of my target.

The race finish was on the local high school track.  I had to stave off the efforts of someone who was trying to pass me in the last sixty yards of the race.  I do not look back near the finish to see if anyone is behind me, because in large part I am not concerned.  The man trying to chase me down was vocalizing the agony he was enduring in an effort to get to the finish line so I had an audible alert someone was coming upon me in a quick fashion.

My GPS watch recorded the distance as 3.15 kilometers. My time at the 3.1 mile (5K) was 22:39.  An extra .05 mile is about 85 yards.

I finished 38th out of 381 runners.  To finish in the top ten percent of the field is an awesome personal accomplishment.  I was 6th out of the 32 male runners in the age group band of 40-49.

Ridley Run 3.1 Goal

I have only had two weeks to train since my last 5K run where I finished in a personal best time of 22:58.  I would like to run in the proximity of  22:45 this weekend.  I believe this point to point course may be more conducive toward setting a personal record.

My mile splits from my last 5K were 6:57, 7:21 and 7:42.  These are all personally very fast mile times.  I  slowed dramatically within the last third of the race. i finished a full forty five seconds slower than my first mile.

In order to set a new personal 5K record of 22:45 this weekend, I need to average 1:50 quarter mile splits.  This translates to a 7:20 per mile average.  I configure my Garmin training watch to display my splits every quarter mile to get feedback on my pace so I can adjust accordingly.
 
During my last five kilometer race  I ran the first quarter mile in  1:33 (one minute thirty three seconds).  Using my 1:50 goal split just mentioned, you might reason I had an extra seventeen seconds to meet my race goal pace after my first quarter mile split from the last race.   However, because I expended this energy in the first quarter mile I suffered a precipitous decline in my pace as the run progressed.

There are two core components which affect my mile splits; how well I feel during race day and the course layout.  If this race had more runners, navigating through runner traffic could be a third component. After reviewing the elevation changes with this course using MapMyRun.com, the first mile is generally downhill. It's almost a foregone conclusion I will complete the first mile in a fast time.

I need to hold back during the first mile and save some energy for the end of the race.  This is my 24th race I have run and I have yet to develop the discipline to manage my pace throughout a race.  I always falter in the last mile.

April 2010 Race

There is not a plethora of races available to run in April.  I was able to find a race in the Philadelphia area this weekend.  The Ridley 3.1 run is unique in the course is of the point to point type.  The runners will be be transported from the parking lot near the finish line to the start of the race at the local YMCA.  This race is being run very early in the morning and as a result the temperatures will most likely be in the upper 40'a or low 50's.

I recently recorded my best 400 meter lap around the local high school track.  I was able to circumnavigate the oval in seventy five seconds.  My first 400 meter lap last year required double the amount of time or one hundred fifty seconds.  I have come a long way in terms of getting back in shape.  I vaguely remember being able to run 400 meters in 65 seconds in high school.  A surprising aspect is I ran the second half of the lap slower than the first. That in itself is not surprising, the fact that I can do even better is more surprising.

March 2010 Month End Summary

I ran a total of  50 miles in March over the course of thirteen outings.  This consumed six hours and fifty one minutes.  That translates to an average 8:09 pace per mile, a very fast average pace for myself.  The average length of my runs for this month was 3.84 miles, the shortest average I have had for quite some time.

I trained the entire month for the race on the last weekend.  Most of my runs were on the order of 3.5 miles in order to get in shape for the 3.1 mile (5 kilometer) Get the Lead Out race on March 27th.  This worked very well for me as I set a personal record for five kilometers, breaking the twenty three minute mark at 22:58.

Knock on wood - I have been injury free for several months.  I attribute this to training within my limits and my body becoming more durable in general.